[captioning made psible by nbc] >> this is the "chris matthews show." >> the time for change. chris: president obama turns to the political censure and goes to afghanistan. he oks offshoreri dlling to focus on oil security and orders a high-level commission to attack deficits. to all obama's moves share the advantage of cutting off republicans. so critics can't call him a big spending, tree-hugging soft on terror type? finally, no time for prime time?

. has been nine months since the president took questions from the press, not since he wdalke into the professor gates' mess. is barack obama barack obama trying to avoid the danger zone? welcome to the show. norah o'donnell, chief white house correspondent. chuck todd is co-host of "the daily run down." helene cooper from the "new york times" and david ignasheyuss, a columnist. -- ignasheyuss. president obama moved to the center, those moves toward the center may not be motivated but they have a political upside. they preempt republican attacks when he runs for re-election. first, offshore drilling pro text obama. he favors the environment in the way that george bush ridiculed jal gore. >> this guy is so faur off on

the environmental extremes we will be up to our neck in outlines and out of -- os and out of work. chris: the surge troop in afghanistan. even vietnam vet john kerry was taken down on that. >> i served with john kerry. ry served with john kerry. he is not honest. >> he is lying. chris: third is obama's debt connection that may protect him from charges. >> these are the actions of an old-style, died in the wool, big spending liberal commit todd a meverngont that spends and spends and taxes and taxes. chris: the numbers don't show it, so he has to move to the center. >> ihink the president would

say he is a pragmatist and he ran his campaign -- he would like to do things more liberal or more progressive, but he has a practicing matic strkea and at the end of the day he will figure it out and pitches health care that way. he won't sell himself as a centrist. instead, the way he can slel the middle is saying i'm a pragmatist. chris: we are in april of 2010 and mid-term elections. they knew they have to get to the center? >> this was planned many months ago. they were pushing jobs, jobs, jobs agenda for months now. and they also thought that health care would have been passed a long time ago. i think they are behind now and really running at this point to do this pivot and to start to

reach out to more independents and more -- with health care, he has the democratic base in the bag. at this point, when you are looking at the mid-term elections and 2012, it is about independents. chris: he has 50% popularity. but congress is immensely unpopular. is there a fight between what he is doing for himself in 2012 and what he has to do in the november elections? >> the white house made a calculated decision after the scott brown victory would they retreat or decide to push this through no matter what and they did. and it has energized the democratic base which they need to do for the 2010 election. the president is pivotting, but it is aimed at independent voters. chris: let'so to afghanistan. i'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt. he believest's good policy, the surge over there, is it working on the ground? >> i just came back from afghanistan and i was traveling

with admiral mullen. you see military victories. marja which is an agricultural town, a big area for the taliban. the marines have come in and cleared it. sat in the middle of town with the people and admiral mullen. the place is different. the tough stuff is ahead, especially in kandahar. it's the place where osama bin laden came. the toughest nut to crack because the problem in kandahar is not the taliban. the problem is corruption. an that's the hardest thing for the strategy to deal with. and i heard so many of the top generals, the commanders of this war, really saying, where will we be in december when the president has to look at this and are we on target for july, 2011 timetable. chris: will the benefit from the strong stand in afghanistan or

will he just as soon or just as well get out of afghanistan politically? >> you could make the argument that he could have gotten out of it. i don't think there is a political plus or minus in afghanistan, it is a net neutral thing. with republicans, you know, they are saying, yeah, we should be there, but it's not going to be a debate issue. chris: i think everybody knows that somewhere down the line, we are going to be out of gas. >> it was a bottled move by the president and he has capred the national security. get off the dependence of foreign oil. the president is announcing these new standards. our cars have to be more efficient, 35 miles to the gallon. all part of that by the president. chris: david? >> the president is trying to have it both ways, drill in some areas, butn some other areas, beautiful cape cod, the pacific coast, we aren't going to drill there. some areas of alaska, but not

others. he does have a way of straddling these issues. and i think looking at his performance over the last year, it is not effective. it leaves both sides unhappy, feeling he hasn't gotten the point. chris: most americans have a point about easthetics but they want the drilling. >> we're going to drill, but not going to drill. chris: the president is -- the president has created a deficit commission. the growth for type said it's for taxes. is he going to do something on the deficits? >> he will do something. commissions, this is a kick the can down the road. the next commission he takes on is going to be something on social security. chris: that's the same question. >> it's part of the same question. one of the ways he kicks the admission can down the road, we

had this social security conversation, medicaid and medicare conversation. chris: it comes down to two decisions, raise taxes, a value -added tax or cut -- neither one pleasant for politicians. >> it's not. and this is a huge issue going down the road. >> i was on the road in arizona with john mccain who brought in sarah palin. you can see how angry people are in this country about the size of the deficit, the size of the government. and it is colored everything. and there is a very, very angry element out in this country and i don't think it's the tea party crowd. that was a republican-leaning tea party crowd. but people are fed up with the size of government and there is so much distrust. even voters -- chris: you have to ask the same angry voters. you guys tell me -- the

president knows the politics of this thing. >> are they going to shut down schools? watch when states have to do this. the next great crisis is going to be the state budget crisis because it is going to lay off teachers and create a huge problem in congress and with the presiden because they have to figure out that doesn't happen. chris: can you get the white house to be overt about the politics of these decisions, afghanistan, the drilling, the deficit commission. do they admit to you that this is repositioning the president? >> they would not use the word reposition. he would say he is more of a centrist. >> you have been saying this all along. >> not repositioning. you are just covering it. >> when he runs for re-election in 2012 which we assume he will, will he be less vulnerable to

g.o.p. attacks well, it's close given he is trying to do. seven say he would be less vulnerable. five say no, very close. you think he will be better off? >> he got health care out of the way which is very divisive and now going to be moving toward the center. chris: same question to you. can the president reposition himself from where he has been as the leader of the progressive party, democratic party, can he reposition himself as america's president? >> i think he is going to try to do that. >> i think the message is going to be, i'm willing to make tough decisions. >> he's going to try and could work with the democrats and the independents, not too sure about the republicans. >> i think he is going to say we are making government work. deficit commission could be a key part of that strategy.

i think it is very helpful, especially when you talked about, beginning to build a cast for value-added tax. chris: do young voters care about this? we have two big white house correspondents. why is barack obama not doing the big presidential press conferences, the kinds that presidents do in the east room. surprisingly, richard nixon reportedly liked the chance to jousting with the press. here he is. >> if you are a lawyer and given the state of the situation and what you do, could you give us some reason why the american people shouldn't believe that that was at least a subtle attempt to bribe the judge in that case and gave at least the appearance of a lack of moral leadership. >> the only part of your statement that perhaps is accurate is a lawyer. [laughter] chris: ronald reagan loved

romancing the tv cameras. >> the stock market is going down and some say we will be in a recession perhaps this fall. do you think we are headed for a recession? >> i didn't think anyone would get around to some pleasant subjects. no, i don't think we are. chris: bill clinton welcomed the chance to show his grasp on issues. >> social security will be invested in some way and come back with interest for the government later on. by then, what will have to happen is, when we start running short of money, 20 years or so from now, the government will have to have been on a balanced budget. so when the bonds are repaid they can be used to pay social security. chris: nobody has been as charming as john f. kennedy. 1962, answering a reporter known for pressing him with tough questions all the time. >> thank you, mr. president. mr. president, visitors who go out to visit lincoln park on

east capitol street are dismayed. congress has authorized and the national council of negro women will erect a memorial stadium and a statue of the great woman educator. now there is a proposal to put an eight-lane freeway between the park and the capitol, cutting it off. could you inquire and see if the freeway could be put out farther beyond the park? >> yes, i will. [laughter] >> mr. president -- >> very gentle today. chris: she was tough to charm, but you can see the kennedy magic there. most presidents have used those big press conferences to their advantage, why hasn't obama done one in the last nine months? we're going to ask these reporters, if this white house

is reluctant to put the president in the east room at prime time? we will be right back.

chris: it was back on july 22 of last year, when president obama held his last prime-time press conference. he went off message by talking about the harvard professor. >> the cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there wea alrasdy proof that they were in their own home. chris: it's getting on a year since we have seen the president in prime time. why doesn't he use the bully pulpit, road block all the networks? why does he nt he do it? >> with all past administrations and past presidents, we have

seen huge blocks of time without -- chris: a year? >> another thing, though, that last press conference was terrible. we all remember it for the gates' incident. he was getting a lot of criticism at the time of that press conference that he had too many, overexposed. and when you go bk and replay that press conference, you see it was a lot of just in the weeds' stuff. it goss boring. chris: i think he was tired. >> no president has gone this long in the past decade. but nine months is a long time. this president favors the one-on-one interview. i think he doesn't like the press conference and in some way the journalists in prime time have more control. chris: don't you think chuck is tough at the white house? >> of course they're tough.

i think it is in some ways about control. the president feels more comfortable. chris: pinata? >> more of a pinata for the press. one on one, he has more control. >> i can tell you what they think, number one, they feel oddly constricted. the president likes to give long answers. he hates the short form ats in general. a prime-time conference, you make the networks mad if you go outside of an hour. already, he has in his own mind restrictions he doesn't like. second, they want to save a prime-time ask, because the net -- chris: a what? >> prime-time ask. they have made it much harder on presidents. you only ask when you feel you need this block of time. it's not like we don't see him or a chance to ask him questions. i think this is the networks and the white house. chris: here's a question with an

answer in it. could it be he doesn't want to arouse his enemies. you go into prime time, y are going to face your enemy and taking away their favorite show at 9:00 and watch you and hate you? >> that may be part of it, but i think that what chuck is saying is right. i don't think he's very good at th.is i don't think he's comfortable at it. in tr truth, i wonder if the politics in general and washington scene, these press conferences compress that, really makes him comfortable. i think other forms of communication work better for him, they know it and why go with something you aren't good at it. >> he doesn't hide. we see him all the time. >> obama has done 150 one-on-one interviews. that is more than clinton and bush. chris: predictions. tell me something i don't know. be rig

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chris: nora, tell me something i don't know. >> the president's approval ratings rebound, i spoke to a political pollsster and he pointed out a very interesting fact, no president's approval ratings have gone up from the beginning of their sophomore year tohe mid-term election so it seems it will be stuck. >> the dog that didn't bite this week, no democratic member of congress, frankly no republican of congress announced retirement. you still have another week. there was real fear there would be more people retiring and it didn't happen peast-health care and that is a huge sign. chris: hold the house? >> yeah. >> in the middle of this impasse going on between the obama administration and israelis over

housing units in east jerusalem, they have been told to stay out of it and keep quiet. >> traveling this last week in afghanistan with admiral mullen he let slip the fact that the iranians secretly have been shipping weapons to the taliban. they are enemies. in kandahar on the eastbound of the u.s. offensive in kandahar. that's scary. chris: the big question, is mit republican nominee against barack obama? and who would be the favorite in that race?

chris: welcome back. on friday, president obama was on cbs sounding like he knows his 2012 opponent is going to be mitt romney. >> the plan proposed by current republican nominee mitt romney. chri that brings us to this week's big question, is obama right? is it romney in 2012? and who is the favorite? will it be romney? >> i think it depends on whether sarah palin is running. >> history says romney, because this is what republicans do. they elect the number two guy. but i have to say, do you know

only one political party has lost a presidency after one term, after flipping the presidencyn the last 150 years, and that was jimmy carter. unless you think obama is jimmy carter -- >> obama is the favorite. >> i think romney would be the most effective republican candidate, but there is an insurgency in the republican party called the tea party movement, which is going to make it hard for anyone calm looking. in the end, i think he will win chris: is it romney? >> at this point with health care passed, i think obama would get by. chris: thanks for the round table. a great one, thwi lots of guts. norah o'donnell, chuck todd, helene cooper and david ignatius. a great follow-up to "body of

lies." that's the show. thanks for watching. happy easter. see you here next week.